Bipolar disorder, depression, obsession, loss and isolation — not topics that you would think add up to an Oscar-nominated love story. But Silver Linings Playbook shines a light into the dark corners of life that we often try to ignore and balances them with touching moments of connection and healing. Not to mention healthy doses of football and dancing. David O. Russell, the film’s writer and director, uses humor and empathy to draw attention to serious issues in a story about a flawed man who transforms his life with the help of love and family.

When we meet Pat Solitano, played by Bradley Cooper, he has had a rough year. He spent eight months in a mental institution being treated for bipolar disorder. His unfaithful wife has left him and he has no job. Pat’s endgame — to win back the love of his estranged wife — is misguided, but it gets him out of bed in the morning. It’s only after he meets Tiffany, a young widow with her own mental health issues played by Jennifer Lawrence, that Pat realizes he needs to change course. Tiffany …

What are the Knights of Columbus?  Special on-location podcast from Denver, CO, and the K of C Supreme Convention.  An interview with Philadelphia’s new archbishop, Charles Chaput, OFM Cap. 08-04-11.

A question on the church’s calendar of seasons.

Out of the Haze (Hayes?) speaks about healing of spirit

Coming Attractions for Sunday’s gospel

Church Search is in Philadelphia

Nov. 4, 2008 — I’m hanging out in an enormous public room at Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia. A large screen TV has one election coverage team chattering and there is an even larger screen on which is projected another channel’s chatterers. We flip from channel to channel (Fox News eliciting boos and laughs), while the screens flip between the talking heads and brightly colored maps of the U.S.A. The states are slowly filling, red and blue and more blue.

Dozens of students, black and white and Latino and Asian, lounge on couches or chat with friends. They type on laptops and click and text. Many have one ear bud from an iPod in one ear; the other ear is “open” for the outside world. This is their multi-media, multi-racial environment, constant lights and noises, constant interaction among various groups, as familiar to them as various waters to fish. At 11 p.m. EST, one of the talking heads sonorously announces Barack Obama has won the election. The room erupts in gentle and heartfelt whoops and hollers. There is a subtle euphoria in the air, but one notes also the overriding …